tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35115061.post3339856191635376430..comments2016-12-09T21:54:12.492-05:00Comments on Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle: Little Wire gangster / SUN 12-5-10 / Second-largest city in Kyrgyzstan / Polly of literature / Alternative to plata / Pedestal toppersRex Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16145707733877505087noreply@blogger.comBlogger84125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35115061.post-49958671433175222272011-01-26T21:36:40.825-05:002011-01-26T21:36:40.825-05:00You sure are a grumpy puzzler. I thought this was...You sure are a grumpy puzzler. I thought this was a fun puzzle to solve. Perhaps your problem is you don&#39;t seem to get the themes for the Sunday puzzle very fast. It is almost the first thing I figure out which makes it more fun.Daniel Kirkdorfferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02329119887120469910noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35115061.post-45381575024707216062010-12-21T15:11:54.047-05:002010-12-21T15:11:54.047-05:00My husband and I had no trouble finishing the whol...My husband and I had no trouble finishing the whole crossword...but got completely stumped at the construction; we couldn&#39;t get further than cutting at the dashes. Even when we looked at the solution in the Times the next week, we STILL couldnt figure it out. So we&#39;re VERY glad to read the solution here. Thanks!!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35115061.post-42675503099828522402010-12-14T23:22:10.119-05:002010-12-14T23:22:10.119-05:00The Sunday News journal neglected to print the clu...The Sunday News journal neglected to print the clue to 44 across!!!!helenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03798405094757992213noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35115061.post-89334939010595627122010-12-13T23:57:15.796-05:002010-12-13T23:57:15.796-05:00Not sure if anyone else mentioned this, but it ran...Not sure if anyone else mentioned this, but it ran without &quot;bold lines&quot; in the OC Register (one week late).Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14017348234740611734noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35115061.post-89128700296330382222010-12-12T18:26:30.588-05:002010-12-12T18:26:30.588-05:00It&#39;s a rainy, windy, miserable day, but as we ...It&#39;s a rainy, windy, miserable day, but as we say in my part of syndication-land, &quot;At least it&#39;s not snow!&quot; The three-plus hours I spent solving this passed pleasurably enough, although I discovered upon coming here that I finished with an error as I had the &quot;Star Trek&quot; extras as EtS which of course produced the non-existent AVOt in Connecticut. I saw the bold lines and dashes easily enough, but the &quot;circles&quot; completely baffled me until I discovered them here. I won&#39;t do the cutting, folding, shading and taping but I still think it&#39;s a really clever construction.<br /><br />Oh, and @BobK and @Pauer&#39;s comments were priceless!Dirigonzohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03903353503511480168noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35115061.post-32395218619077654582010-12-10T20:14:04.470-05:002010-12-10T20:14:04.470-05:00I solve from paper. It&#39;s too bad the electroni...I solve from paper. It&#39;s too bad the electronic versions did not support the necessary imagery. (Tut, tut!) From the title and the bold lines, I was off to a roaring start even before reading a clue. The instruction that took some time and a lot of crosses was SHADE THE CIRCLES, but when it arrived, I was hugely delighted. I quickly filled in the rest of the 21 O&#39;s in the pertinent area of the puzzle, which added to the <i>eclat</i>... and to the solving experience. Thank you Mr. Pall.<br />Thank you, also for making a proper right-handed die. This gave a warm fuzzy feeling. However, I would have been too hasty to complain about a left-handed design. A quick googling reveals that <a href="http://homepage.ntlworld.com/dice-play/DiceStandard.htm" rel="nofollow">dice standards</a> are not universal; China uses left-handed dice.<br /><br />I stalled out completely in the southeast. The entrance there is guarded by 81 down: &quot;device for winter sidewalks&quot;, which was clearly SHOVEL. And OOLONG was so long in coming that it could not break me out of my shovel addiction.<br /><br />I loved &quot;nile biters&quot;. Even read it wrong the first 3 times.<br /><br />CORD: glad to see others missed this too. I eventually rationalized it as a bathtub plug dangling on those long cords (chains) of old. Amazing I missed the electrical cord. Liked Little Tony&#39;s offering, though. He clearly worked hard on that.<br /><br />Poor old Edsel. Too bad Ford couldn&#39;t get royalties each time that FLOP image has been used.<br /><br />EURASIA never came. I even googled it, and OCEANIA shouldda been a lock.<br /><br />94 Down: [That&#39;s awful]: Why the square brackets? What should I think next time I see square brackets in a clue?Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16911901473993027184noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35115061.post-50991792197142703942010-12-10T19:16:00.410-05:002010-12-10T19:16:00.410-05:00You too, retired_chemist: It WAS a word puzzle, no...You too, retired_chemist: It WAS a word puzzle, not &quot;a virtuoso construction gimmick&quot;. <br />It was &quot;faux origami&quot; indeed; you only needed to do the folding in your head to appreciate the virtuoso construction skill in this puzzle.Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16911901473993027184noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35115061.post-40207477426933292732010-12-10T19:08:42.362-05:002010-12-10T19:08:42.362-05:00Totally awestruck by Rex&#39;s emotion on this.
1....Totally awestruck by Rex&#39;s emotion on this.<br />1. instructions = death?<br />These were fun, and clever. And intuitable.<br /><br />2. &quot;Circles&quot;? SHADE THE CIRCLES?? There are no &quot;circles.&quot; There are &quot;O&quot;s. &quot;O&quot;s are letters. <br />Come now. If you can&#39;t stand this kind of kinking of the language, you should not be doing crossword puzzles.<br /><br />3. So put off was I by this &quot;do some crap to your puzzle after you&#39;ve finished it&quot;... <br />Gasp! It&#39;s a <b>word puzzle</b>! You don&#39;t actually have to cut and paste to understand the craftiness of the crossword. Where ARE you?Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16911901473993027184noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35115061.post-89634282083612625122010-12-08T11:52:40.982-05:002010-12-08T11:52:40.982-05:00To Rex et al, The die was cast, it was our cross t...To Rex et al, The die was cast, it was our cross to bear.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35115061.post-70783434691040815782010-12-06T06:30:47.228-05:002010-12-06T06:30:47.228-05:00Did anyone notice that the upper left corner and t...Did anyone notice that the upper left corner and the lower right corner of every square was an &#39;o&#39;. This was helpful when I saw that pattern. I agree with Rex. The long answers were a bore. Otherwise totally impressive that it was done by a 15 year old.joanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13721899406343067982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35115061.post-68564907212296632672010-12-06T02:51:24.181-05:002010-12-06T02:51:24.181-05:00Easy- no writeovers, unusual for a sunday. Don&#39...Easy- no writeovers, unusual for a sunday. Don&#39;t usually like the artsy crafty thing, but this was cool, and you didn&#39;t have to cut and tape to figure it out.TimJimnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35115061.post-63771944664842918182010-12-05T23:15:24.414-05:002010-12-05T23:15:24.414-05:00@anon 10:59: Wite-out.@anon 10:59: Wite-out.mmorganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18375430572178263265noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35115061.post-20487571066038826722010-12-05T22:59:54.529-05:002010-12-05T22:59:54.529-05:00I know it&#39;s late and few any anyone will read ...I know it&#39;s late and few any anyone will read this, but I&#39;ve finished the puzzle and made the die. Can anyone tell me how to get rid of all those black squares?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35115061.post-47361868254660379902010-12-05T21:48:17.670-05:002010-12-05T21:48:17.670-05:00Starting with the paper puzzle made this a lot eas...Starting with the paper puzzle made this a lot easier. It was cute and the clues required some brainpower.<br /><br />One can always glaze this as a gift and give instead of the cubes in the nytimes store.Betsyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16820062030383974637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35115061.post-61969298051244609592010-12-05T21:40:12.544-05:002010-12-05T21:40:12.544-05:00I don&#39;t much care for gimmick puzzles. When t...I don&#39;t much care for gimmick puzzles. When the gimmick isn&#39;t even apparent from the AL printout, it is totally annoying. Slog city for me. Finished with no sense of pleasure or accomplishment.Van55http://www.blogger.com/profile/15904942044695917615noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35115061.post-32991404011262375492010-12-05T21:33:08.219-05:002010-12-05T21:33:08.219-05:00@r.alphbunker
Now I get you. I couldn&#39;t unde...@r.alphbunker<br /><br /> Now I get you. I couldn&#39;t understand how you could fit&quot;Not a ship&quot; into 64A. I now realize you were talking about a theoretical puzzle.NATEnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35115061.post-18741763278909079082010-12-05T20:55:52.694-05:002010-12-05T20:55:52.694-05:00@Nate
First of all, this was not a serious sugges...@Nate<br /><br />First of all, this was not a serious suggestion for a theme. It was playing with the common technique of referencing one clue from another. This is usually done because the answer spans two sections of the grid. For example, in Wednesday&#39;s Woody Allen puzzle 9A was &quot;With 64A, Woody Allen movie of 2005&quot; and 64A was &quot;See 9A&quot;<br /><br />My suggestion was that clues of the form &quot;See X&quot; would refer to a footnote which was a clarification of the answer. Like clarifying that the VESSEL was NOT A SHIP (but rather a test tube).<br /><br />Other constructors have played with clue linking. One that comes to mind is BEQ&#39;s infamous puzzle 5 of the 2010 ACPT. In that puzzle clues containing &quot;with X&quot; were completed using word &quot;with&quot; and whatever was at X. For example,<br />19A was &quot;Go, with 76 Across&quot; and 76A was &quot;See 19A&quot;. 19A turned out to be CONFORM and 76A was THE FLOW. So 19A actually was &quot;Go with the flow&quot; which is to CONFORM.<br /><br />A variation on the footnote theme would be to anticipate RP&#39;s objections to answers. For example 1A might be &quot;A year in Spain, see 64A&quot;. The answer to 1A would be ANO and 64A would be DONT DO THIS.r.alphbunkernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35115061.post-82997688220891819472010-12-05T19:58:16.119-05:002010-12-05T19:58:16.119-05:00@ Nate -
It really happened. Joe Bunnett (author...@ Nate - <br /><br />It really happened. Joe Bunnett (author) and Fred Greene (Editor) are friends of mine. The point was made, in C&amp;EN, that it was intelligible to the referees and was proper science, so why should the Editor fault it?<br /><br />I didn&#39;t give the link to force arcane (and archival) science down the throats of the participants in this blog, but to reinforce the whimsicality implied by r.alphbunker.retired_chemisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13181126754941899228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35115061.post-92221094852811854802010-12-05T19:28:10.064-05:002010-12-05T19:28:10.064-05:00After reading things here, it was a good puzzle, b...After reading things here, it was a good puzzle, but not when I was trying to solve it. I print these out from A-L at 5 AM while half-awake to take to work and do at lunch, finishing at home if necessary. (No access to crosswords or blogs on the company server). I&#39;ve learned to look for the &quot;see notepad&quot; remark in the header, but that wasn&#39;t here, just that little yellow square @mmorgan mentioned. And I didn&#39;t notice any reference to the PDF when I printed the puzzle.skua76http://www.blogger.com/profile/15450051465313263422noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35115061.post-8787184231983635452010-12-05T18:09:25.016-05:002010-12-05T18:09:25.016-05:00@Noah Webster: have to admit, I guess I am gullibl...@Noah Webster: have to admit, I guess I am gullible..... Of course I thought of the plug and electrical cord, but accepted the little guy&#39;s comment as true. Now I checked and can&#39;t find anything, except for a PLUG LOG!!<br />Thanks.machttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06794371617847975218noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35115061.post-51876406579261461182010-12-05T17:59:44.115-05:002010-12-05T17:59:44.115-05:00I would normally agree with Rex and the other nays...I would normally agree with Rex and the other naysayers, but this puzzle seemed much better than the recent Sunday fare. I solve on paper and saw the cube before I even started the puzzle (I have an autistic son that is into origami and three dimensional constructions). Although I &quot;knew&quot; what the instructions should be, the actual answers were off from my solution by just enough to not help at all. Was really thrown by the CIRCLES as I was solving, as they were not part of the &quot;cube&quot; I was constructing. Finally finished up and noticed the O&#39;s in the corners of several of the &quot;sides&quot; of the cubes, but still didn&#39;t understand why they were there. Reluctantly, I started shading them in, and &quot;voila&quot;, there were the faces of the die.<br />Color me very impressed with the construction and satisfied with the fill.<br />I always assumed folks read Rex&#39;s comments before posting (and probably the other posters as well), but I&#39;ve got to conclude that a lot don&#39;t. The only way to understand some of the questions/comments.PuzzleNutnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35115061.post-22737594646029689222010-12-05T17:42:51.605-05:002010-12-05T17:42:51.605-05:00@r.alphbunker
Please explain what you mean by
f...@r.alphbunker<br /><br /> Please explain what you mean by<br /><br />footnotes in crossword puzzles <br /><br />using possible Clues and Answers<br /><br />for 1A and 64A.<br /><br />@ret_chemist<br /><br /> Hard to believe that something<br /><br />like that was in JOC. Thank good-<br /><br />ness I never had to read an<br /><br />article like thatNATEnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35115061.post-88419168678454449052010-12-05T17:22:08.206-05:002010-12-05T17:22:08.206-05:00@retired_chemist
:-). But footnotes have no place ...@retired_chemist<br />:-). But footnotes have no place in a poem even if it is written in blank verse. <br /><br />What&#39;s next, footnotes in a crossword puzzle? E.G., <br />clue for 1A could be &quot;test tube&quot; (see 64A). <br />Answer to 1A could be VESSEL<br />Clue for 64A could be -<br />Answer to 64A could be NOT A BOATr.alphbunkernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35115061.post-39019467443296623682010-12-05T17:06:56.659-05:002010-12-05T17:06:56.659-05:00Great fun! Those of you who don&#39;t like to play...Great fun! Those of you who don&#39;t like to play with your puzzles take these things way too seriously. This effort was incredibly inventive and a blast to solve and figure out. Nice work, Mr. Pall!Falconernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35115061.post-48937456408520678732010-12-05T16:33:48.124-05:002010-12-05T16:33:48.124-05:00I, too, enjoyed the puns more than the puzzle. Did...I, too, enjoyed the puns more than the puzzle. Didn&#39;t we have a cut and paste puzzle a long while back? Solved late as I had a speaking date at 8:30 am 60 mi. away and was gone until two pm, but solved over lunch, so not too hard.quilter1http://www.blogger.com/profile/09569747169212018177noreply@blogger.com